The
unspeakable horror of plastic has infected many industries but it is its
flagrant, shameless use that has condemned many of today's firearms to flounder
with all the heirloom quality of a Bic pen. It is one thing to put the plastic
lid on your garbage can but quite another to grind up a garbage can lid and
attempt to make a gun out of it. Recycling is a good thing, but a new gun that
looks like it needs to be recycled immediately it is a different matter.

Naturally,
it is hardly manufacturers that are solely to blame. If savvy consumers
rejected plastic for no reason, passed on the polymer without purpose, and
tap-danced away from tupperware without taste, the landscape would be
different. For the time being, though, there is an overabundance of composite
without cause.

Distinction
should be made between plastic for the sake of cheap against the tapestry of
build materials that do offer tangible advantages in performance. The plastic
stock is as good an example as anything. You've all seen hollow, cheap,
blow-molded stocks on shotguns and rifles. They are noisy, mostly hollow except
perhaps for a cheap piece of foam shoved in the buttstock. Slippery and greasy,
they cannot easily be bedded. Called “synthetic,” they are more like a
composite of melted-down milk jugs than anything else. They add nothing to
hunting and shooting, just more of the unspeakable horror of being cheap,
flimsy, and breathtakingly ugly. Laminated stocks, as a class, are stronger,
more accurate, and more weatherproof than many plastic attempts. Strength,
rigidity, and weatherproofing is why they were first made. Formed with high
pressure, heat, and glue their only negative is their weight, which may not be
a negative at all depending on application. While the furniture aficionado may
rightly scoff at laminated wood as offensive to his delicate sensibilities, it
is stronger and more weatherproof than standard walnut, so its use has purpose
and benefit.

Often, it
gets to the point where the assumption is made that plastic is better for wet
conditions or that wood doesn't belong in the hunting woods. What is more
natural in the woods, wood itself or highly polished plastic made by old world
craftsmen? After all, lumber comes from trees and plastic comes from the stuff
currently coagulating in the Gulf of Mexico. Looking at a majestic ship such as
the U.S.S. Constitution, nowhere on
this wooden beauty is the warning “keep away from water or wet conditions”
anywhere to be found. They just don't make three-masted wooden frigates like
they used to.

There are
exceptions that prove the rule. Ruger's LCR is anything but wondrously
attractive and superbly easy on the eyes in any conventional sense. Who has the
prettiest concealed weapon isn't something that is going to be easily seen or
appreciated. In the case of the Ruger LCR, the lightweight, corrosion
resistance, and soft-shooting qualities provide the advancement in portability
and serviceability, if not dashing good looks. The same can be said for the
purposeful Glock, the autoloading pistol standard in the minds of many.

In the
end, the only consumer vote that ever counts, the vote with the wallet, will
determine what the future brings. We can all carp about “they don't make them
like they used to” (often a very good thing) but if we really want tasteful
guns made of authentic materials, someone is going to have to start buying
them. We aren't doing that. Small wonder that thick plastic with visible mold
lines, rough, poorly polished and crude matte finishes often win the day. They
only win because that is what we buy.

The
terror of plastic is a terror that we have decided to fund. There is nothing
inherently bad about any firearm, regardless. Just because a gun is
crude-looking, crumpled-looking, or void of any aesthetic qualities does not
make it a bad thing. Just because you have a good-looking dog doesn't mean it
can hunt, either.

However, we
have a responsibility, if we want to elevate the opinion of the general public
about hunting and shooting, to present ourselves in a manner we can be proud
of. I'm referring to guns that are made solely to look mean, intimidating, or
cartoonish. The big and bad went south in the modern age along with flaming
skull decals. Effort has been made to offer toy guns, squirt guns and paintball
guns that look mean, bad, or pathetically ridiculous, depending on your point of
view. I'm all for the goofiest looking Super-Soaker or rubber-band gun
possible. Nevertheless, if we choose to use firearms that look like they came
from the circus, we can hardly expect the non-shooting public to consider us as
other than clowns.

The
categoric dismissal of the new, the novel, the unconventional is itself unfair.
It is the worst type of sort of judging a book by its cover. At the same time,
there are fundamental attributes to build quality. Stamped parts are still
stamped, unpolished still means unpolished, and no matter how you try to call
parts made from ground-up garbage can lids “tactical” when the only tactics
present are trying to find new ways to sell ground-up garbage can lids and milk
jugs.

if we want well-crafted,
aesthetically pleasing firearms, there is a simple solution. We have to buy
them. Again, there is no such thing as a morally bad gun, so long as the gun
functions safely and does what you want it to do. If we want to elevate the
view of hunters and shooters as gentleman and sportsman, presenting ourselves
and our equipment with taste and grace is all a part of the picture.